Kareena Kapoor: Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India into the Kapoor film family of Punjabi origin, Kapoor is the youngest daughter of actors Randhir Kapoor and Babita (née Shivdasani). According to Kapoor, her first name was derived from the book Anna Karenina. She is the granddaughter of actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor and the great granddaughter of Prithviraj Kapoor. Bebo, as she is fondly called, is also the sister of actress Karisma Kapoor and the niece of actor Rishi Kapoor.

Despite being born into a successful acting family, her father insisted that she marry early according to Indian tradition and avoid acting. In an interview with Encyclopedia Britannica, he stated that the problem was not women acting itself, given that both he and his brother married well-known actresses as did their uncles. Rather, his concerns arose from the purported incompatibility between acting and the maternal duties and responsibility of women in the family. This led to irreconcilable differences between her parents and resulted in her mother leaving the house along with Kapoor and her older sister. She was raised by her mother, who, with difficulty, worked several jobs to support the family, until Karisma began work as an actress in 1991.

Kapoor was educated at Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai, and later Welham Girls Boarding School in Dehradun. After studying commerce at Mithibai College, Vile Parle for two years, she embarked upon a three-month summer course in microcomputers at Harvard University. She later developed an interest in law and enrolled at the Government's Law College in Churchgate. After completing one year there, she returned to her initial plan to become an actress and commenced training under Kishore Namit Kapoor's Acting Institute.